A Strait of Uncertainty: Taiwan's Development in the Shadow of China

Abstract

Relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on the Chinese Mainland, and the Republic of China (ROC), on Taiwan, had improved significantly since 2008. Taiwan investment in China had played a major role in China’s economic boom in recent decades. Investments, partnerships, study, travel, and marriages across the Strait pointed to a future of ever-greater interaction between two parties that brought Asia to the brink of war three times in the last half-century (1954, 1958, 1996). But what does the future hold? Will Taiwan thrive and yet maintain its autonomy as a part of the broader economy of “Greater China”? Will economic integration lead, inexorably, to Taiwan’s incorporation into the People’s Republic of China? Or will the 2016 electoral backlash in Taiwan against integration with the Mainland embolden the new Taiwan leadership to seek a future for Taiwan separate from China?

Relations between the People’s Republic of China (PRC), on the Chinese Mainland, and the Republic of China (ROC), on Taiwan, had improved significantly since 2008. Taiwan investment in China had played a major role in China’s economic boom in recent decades. Investments, partnerships, study, travel, and marriages across the Strait pointed to a future of ever-greater interaction between two parties that brought Asia to the brink of war three times in the last half-century (1954, 1958, 1996). But what does the future hold? Will Taiwan thrive and yet maintain its autonomy as a part of the broader economy of “Greater China”? Will economic integration lead, inexorably, to Taiwan’s incorporation into the People’s Republic of China? Or will the 2016 electoral backlash in Taiwan against integration with the Mainland embolden the new Taiwan leadership to seek a future for Taiwan separate from China?

This case tells the story of how Wang Minghui, Chairman of Yunnan Baiyao Group since 1999, transformed a single-product traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) state-owned enterprise (SOE) into a major diversified consumer health player in China's highly competitive fast-moving consumer goods market. The case also traces the development of the company from a private business to a SOE and then to a SOE under mixed state-private ownership.